News shared by Charity on behalf of East Wight Primary. Ed
With support for the government at a historic low, unprecedented numbers will be voting tactically on 4th July, but campaigners in East Wight are concerned that online tactical recommendations may be misleading voters.
Tactical voting websites draw on national polling data with small local sample sizes, but voters here face the difficulty that website recommendations do not tally with local indicators.
Conflicting tactical polls
Some websites are suggesting that those wanting a non-Tory MP should vote Labour on 4th July.
However, exit polls at recent hustings have shown that Green candidate Vix Lowthion is the popular choice to defeat the Conservatives.
O’Flynn: A nightmare for tactical voters
Mobes O’Flynn of East Wight Primary, said,
“This situation is a nightmare for tactical voters here.
“Those looking for advice online are being pushed towards Labour, but Labour have very little on-the-ground presence or support.
“These websites risk undermining the growing support for the candidate with the best chance, which is Green candidate Vix Lowthion.”
East Wight Primary, a community-organised campaign, asked voters which of the candidates – Green, Labour or Lib Dem – was best-placed to defeat the Conservatives. Vix Lowthion won 53% of the vote, with the Labour candidate taking just 24%.
Other local polling
Local polling at candidate hustings supports this conclusion. At the Churches Together hustings in Brading, exit polls showed that 34% thought Lowthion had won, against 10% for Labour.
Lowthion won another hustings outright, taking 39% of the vote against Labour’s 9%.
National polling
On the other hand, national tactical voting site GetVoting.org uses polling data to recommend Labour. Other tactical voting sites are more hesitant and are waiting to confirm their choice, with StopTheTories.vote noting ‘an unusually high level of local campaigning activity’ in the seat.
Polling by Omnisis suggest that the Green vote is being underestimated in other rural seats. The MRP data is not responsive to strong local campaigns, and the People’s Primary process is pioneering local voters choosing the tactical choice for themselves.
Garnett: We should be using local polling to rally behind Vix
East Wight Primary co-founder, Charity Garnett, said,
“Our vote involved 876 people. That’s a much larger sample size for a constituency than even the biggest MRP polls, which poll up to about 70 voters per seat.
“We used the electoral register to make sure that voters were constituents and only voted once, so the Primary result is a rock-solid indicator of local feeling.
“We should be using it to rally behind Vix in the same way that Labour and Green voters are rallying behind the Lib Dem winner of the South Devon Primary, which is giving a rocket boost to her campaign.”
40% of voters are prepared to vote tactically
With support for the Conservative government plummeting, Best For Britain suggests that 40% of voters are prepared to vote tactically to remove a Conservative.
Charity says,
“It’s really challenging that non-local polling bodies are suggesting we get behind Labour.
“We think it’s happening because these are new boundaries – East Wight has never been contested. Labour previously did well here with Richard Quigley, because he was an exceptional candidate and Islanders vote for people not party, but he’s gone to West Wight now.
“He is clearly the tactical choice in West Wight, and the exit polls on the local hustings and his ground campaign reflect that, but the situation is completely different in East Wight. We think the data being used to inform the tactical voting websites is poor and tragically risks the Tories winning here.”
If national polling can be this wrong here, what does it say about other places?
The Primary organisers suggest that the core problem is the UK’s first-past-the-post voting system.
“If we had proportional representation, like most other countries in Europe, every voter would be represented. Instead, our system – which in Europe is a complete outlier – forces voters to work with flawed or conflicting information to get the outcomes they want.
“If the polling can be this wrong here, what does it say about other places? Lots of seats have new boundaries, and pollsters have – famously – been wrong before. We live here, and we know that Islanders vote for quality candidates like Vix Lowthion, not for parties that happen to be doing well elsewhere.”
